LAHORE, May 20: Advocate Syed Ehsan Qadir Shah, the counsel for Rehmat Shah Afridi, submitted in the Lahore High Court on Thursday that the special anti-narcotics court awarded death sentence to the convict without going into legalities of the case property and did not verify its genuineness.

He submitted in his opening arguments that the prosecution produced 20 packets of marijuana in court, which had nothing to do with the case property and was merely an attempt to drag the appellant into the offence.

A division bench of the LHC, comprising Justice Syed Tassadaq Husain Jilani and Justice Saeed Akhtar, is hearing the appeal of the Frontier Post's proprietor against his death sentence in a narcotics case.

His counsel further submitted that the property was burnt by a magistrate and the trial court did not supervise its destruction, though the law contained unambiguous provisions for the trial court's supervision after a notice to the accused.

He stated that the record did not show that the case property was deposited with the Anti-Narcotics Force police station. One of the prosecution witnesses, moharrar Abdul Ghafoor, stated that he did not receive it while another witness claimed that it was deposited with the police station.

He submitted that the trial court did not preserve specimens in accordance with the law. It allowed 17, out of 20 packets, to be destroyed without taking specimens from all the packets that was ordained in the law and part of a number of superior courts' judgments.

Responding to a court query, special public prosecutor Khawaja Sultan Ahmad submitted that 17 packets were destroyed and three kept as case property. The appeal is being heard on a day-to-day basis. The court adjourned the hearing till May 26.